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Upwork Freelancers Who Want Guaranteed Pay Have to Opt in to Tracking Software

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Re: Upwork Freelancers Who Want Guaranteed Pay Have to Opt in to Tracking Software

#61

Post by spadros »

Roritharr wrote: post #59
spadros wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a company that commonly outsources, you should have good freelancing game. By that I mean you build a network of freelancers you've worked with before or have heard good feedback from trusted sources. My girlfriend is a manager at a writing company. She has a group of about 30 freelancers she keeps in touch with on top of the 10 people who work directly under her at her company. When too much work comes in…

The company actually had, that's why things worked out and I returned to more projects afterwards, but it was stressful and not a job they would have given someone else, because of the lack of trust inherent in any new freelancer. If you want freelancing to stay mostly something for people great at selling themselves, managing customer relations etc. that model works well, but that's IMO not optimal for the company n…

Hmmm, interesting. I wonder how important self advertising is in this case, though. I know that she usually posts content she can't get done with her normal freelancers on this writer's freelance site. Freelancers make bids, negotiate terms, etc, through the website. After she's worked with someone she likes through it she tends to keep their email and ask them directly next time.

I think you're right that this type of model benefits freelancers that manage their own group of clients rather than through an agency, however.

Re: Upwork Freelancers Who Want Guaranteed Pay Have to Opt in to Tracking Software

#62

Post by Zanni »

candiodari wrote: post #49
aclimatt wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, and if you're delivering work and that's working out all well for you, then great. And it appears that you can go that route instead on UpWork, agree on milestones, and no tracking required. But, if like many people you are getting burned by non-payment, then turning this feature on seems like a pretty good route to go for stability in your wallet.

Could you explain a bit why Upwork, who are a company that have countless forum posts, blog posts, ... about non-payment, clawing back payments in entirely unjustified circumstances with zero recourse, ... I'm saying they have a very bad reputation in this regard. Why would giving these people more power over you result in more payment ? They are looking to exploit these freelancers, and this gives them more power. W…

I've used Upwork in the past with no problems (from Upwork, I've had problems with clients). I ready the links you posted and not one of them mentions Upwork cheating or clawing back payments. Only the first article is really critical of Upwork per se, and all the truly damning stuff, if it exists, has been removed, so it's hard to judge.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but you made a pretty contentious statement and your evidence is lacking. Do you have a more explicit link to what you're talking about?

Re: Upwork Freelancers Who Want Guaranteed Pay Have to Opt in to Tracking Software

#63

Post by ggg9990 »

riffraff wrote: post #41
aclimatt wrote: post #38

I'm a consultant and have been for a long time, and I know this business. I don't think counting keystrokes and in many cases screenshots make any sense, so I think the implementation of this is totally bogus, but the concept makes complete sense. "I've never had a client expect to be able to look over my shoulder" Right well UpWork isn't your client. I don't think your clients should, and to another person's point,…

Isn't there some deliverable that proves the work was done?

Yes but Upwork wants a metric that doesn’t need a software engineer to adjudicate. If you say “this XHMTL validator works as specified because RFC 1913 was never formally accepted” it takes someone with a clue to figure out what you mean. Upwork would rather say “you types all day, you get paid.”

Re: Upwork Freelancers Who Want Guaranteed Pay Have to Opt in to Tracking Software

#64

Post by lechiffre10 »

That doesn't even scratch the surface of Upwork issues though. Has anyone recently seen how much clients are willing to pay for work? I'm seeing avg pays of about 9-10$ an hour for mid-complexity jobs. Even see some clients willing to pay 600$ for fully functional IOS, Android and Web App iterations of an App.

Re: Upwork Freelancers Who Want Guaranteed Pay Have to Opt in to Tracking Software

#65

Post by severine »

swaggyBoatswain wrote: post #31

Semirelated but I run timesnapper, which is a private tracking software running only on my PC so I can check if I've forgotten to save a doc and wanted to see what it looked like 2 hours ago.

Interesting!

Link: http://timesnapper.com/

What would be the *nix alternative?

Re: Upwork Freelancers Who Want Guaranteed Pay Have to Opt in to Tracking Software

#66

Post by peterlk »

riffraff wrote: post #41
aclimatt wrote: post #38

I'm a consultant and have been for a long time, and I know this business. I don't think counting keystrokes and in many cases screenshots make any sense, so I think the implementation of this is totally bogus, but the concept makes complete sense. "I've never had a client expect to be able to look over my shoulder" Right well UpWork isn't your client. I don't think your clients should, and to another person's point,…

Isn't there some deliverable that proves the work was done?

Yeah, but lawyers are expensive

Re: Upwork Freelancers Who Want Guaranteed Pay Have to Opt in to Tracking Software

#67

Post by heyyyouu »

naeemtee wrote: post #23

Not to shamelessly plug, but this Upwork monolith (and the general sub-optimized gig economy right now) is harmful not just for the freelancers themselves, but also the clients (from a price optimization perspective). We're trying to solve it with a blind marketplace model at ContentFly ( http://contentfly.co/ )

I just looked at your home page and that just seems incredible to promise to your clients. Do you actually have writers taking this gig? I know of no professional copy (or other) writers that would write unlimited articles for $250 a month, esp. "on demand" and "in brand tone." Not to mention all the back and forth that goes with client writing.

Yes, your clients may get articles, but not quality articles (or even ones that read like they've been written by native English speakers or people who understand the topic). And if the marketing person has to rewrite everything, what's the point in buying it in the first place?

Re: Upwork Freelancers Who Want Guaranteed Pay Have to Opt in to Tracking Software

#68

Post by sdegutis »

ggg9990 wrote: post #63
riffraff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there some deliverable that proves the work was done?

Yes but Upwork wants a metric that doesn’t need a software engineer to adjudicate. If you say “this XHMTL validator works as specified because RFC 1913 was never formally accepted” it takes someone with a clue to figure out what you mean. Upwork would rather say “you types all day, you get paid.”

Still very easy for people to bypass. Just pushes the adjudication into the "interpret screenshot" layer. The screenshot can be a completely valid Photoshop mockup that looks exactly like the client's specifications for the Rails app they hired you for, showing that you pretended to do the work.

Re: Upwork Freelancers Who Want Guaranteed Pay Have to Opt in to Tracking Software

#69

Post by bredren »

chuckgreenman wrote: post #52

I do some freelance work through Upwork. I like the tracking software, it shows that I'm doing work, all my hours are verified and they are guaranteed to be paid. It's completely worth it, people who have been stiffed on contracts before, its a no brainer.

Me too. I did 40k of work for an employer who ended up stiffing a ton of employees but I was protected because of upwork’s setup.

I used to hate it and still I exit the app unless I’m actively working. But it assures payment which is important.

Re: Upwork Freelancers Who Want Guaranteed Pay Have to Opt in to Tracking Software

#70

Post by Hello71 »

I see many comments saying that this is fine because it's optional. Based on the previous posts discussing Upwork (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=upwork), it seems to me like today this is optional and tomorrow this will be mandatory and the next day it will add machine learning webcam face detection technology.
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